Join us for On Leather & Lace, a Curator & Artist Talk with Liberatory Living Artists Michael Bennett and Malene Barnett in conversation with Curator Key Jo Lee. This program is presented as part of Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week.

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Liberatory Living is about creating spaces that allow us to imagine the world otherwise. In this conversation, moderated by Lee, the audience will be invited to reflect alongside Barnett and Bennett, on how leather and lace have inspired them to create new forms.

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Michael Bennett (@mosesbread72) a Super Bowl champion and three-time Pro Bowl defensive end, has significantly broadened his impact beyond football. As an activist, bestselling author, and devoted family man, Bennett channels his dedication to social justice and education into his professional pursuits.

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As the founder and Creative Director of Studio Kër, Bennett’s work is focused on communicating through African diasporic forms and languages. His designs ensure these influences are embedded across a spectrum of spatial scales, from individual objects to comprehensive environments.

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Bennett believes that public art and architecture have the profound capacity to facilitate communal engagement, allowing personal emotions and ideas to be expressed and experienced in public spaces. Through Studio Kër, he continues to advance this vision, creating environments that honor and reflect diverse cultural narratives while fostering meaningful dialogue.

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Malene Djenaba Barnett (@malene.barnett) is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, textile surface designer and the founder of the Black Artists + Designers Guild, a global platform and community of independent Black makers. Malene’s art reflects her African Caribbean heritage, building on her ancestral legacy of mark-making as a visual identity, and has been exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States. Her art and design work has also been featured in major publications such as the New York Times, Architectural Digest, and Elle Decor.

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In 2024, Malene released her first book, Crafted Kinship: Inside the Creative Practice of Contemporary Black Caribbean Makers (Hachette), which includes interviews with over 60 artists of Caribbean heritage, taking readers on an important journey through the world of Black Caribbean creativity. This groundbreaking collection is the first to feature Caribbean makers’ intimate stories of their artmaking processes, and how their countries of origin—the “land” —influences and informs how and what they create.

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Malene is a Fulbrighter, gives talks nationally, and publishes work raising awareness of Caribbean makers and ceramic art traditions of the Black diaspora. Malene has participated in residencies at Anderson Ranch, Watershed, Greenwich House Pottery, Judson Studios, and Haystack. In 2024, she was the Nellie Mae Rowe Distinguished Fellow at the Hambidge Center in Georgia. When she’s not traveling the world researching Black diasporic aesthetics, Malene resides in Brooklyn, New York.

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Key Jo Lee (@keyjolee) is chief of curatorial affairs and public programs at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. In this role, Lee oversees the strategic direction for the museum’s exhibitions and programs; leads globally on identifying and promoting emerging artists from the African diaspora; and works to expand MoAD’s reach and influence locally, nationally, and internationally. She is responsible for the overall management and execution of the museum’s curatorial vision, including its exhibitions, publications, and public and educational programs, and plays an important role in the organization’s outreach, communications, and digital strategy. Lee has a master’s degree from and is PhD candidate in History of Art and African American Studies at Yale University. Her first book, Perceptual Drift: Black Art and an Ethics of Looking, was published by Yale University Press and The Cleveland Museum of Art in January 2023.

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This program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors & Radical Black Joy, on view at MoAD from October 2, 2024 - March 2, 2025.

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